Almost exactly two years after their fateful meeting at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, Magnus Carlsen and Hans Niemann will once again play a competitive chess match over the board in a big-time tournament, the semifinals of the Speed Chess Championships, on Friday in Paris. The two players' collective journey back to the same board in a high-stakes match is not quite as enthralling as their incendiary bickering match of two years ago, though they've walked rather circuitous paths back here.
We'll start with Carlsen, as his life has been far simpler than Niemann's over the past two years. Shortly after the Niemann affair, Carlsen officially ceded the title of world champion, an honor he'd held for a decade, to Ding Liren. Ding defeated former Carlsen challenger Ian Nepomniatchi in 2023, a few months before Carlsen stormed to the 2023 Chess World Cup title. He then won and defended the rapid and blitz world championships, and there's not any debate about whether or not he remains the best player in the world. His prep for this month's tournament included playing nine 3+0 games against Ediz Gurel, one of the youngest grandmasters in the world. He won eight of them, despite Gurel putting up a good fight.
